Healthy Food Choices: Biotin-Enriched Foods

Video Transcript

MICHELLE COOPER: Next, we're going to talk about biotin. Biotin is a water-soluble B complex vitamin. It's important for the synthesis of fatty acids and amino acids. It's also helpful in maintaining a steady glucose blood level. A biotin deficiency is rare. In fact, biotin can be produced by intestinal bacteria. However, dietary sources of biotin are your meats or are found in your meat group. So if you have diabetes and low levels of biotin, you may want to make sure that you're incorporating a lean source of meat into your diet on a daily basis. Also, you may want to make sure that your multivitamin has a source of biotin in it. Other than that, most Americans get enough biotin or produce it in their intestinal bacteria; therefore, they don't need to supplement. Lastly, biotin is thought to produce stronger hair and nails; therefore, you'll find biotin in a lot of cosmetic products. If for some reason you have a disease or a condition which may affect hair loss or brittle nails, then maybe a biotin supplement may help; other than that, biotin is abundant in the diet and deficiencies are rarely seen in most people without diabetes.